‘Hooda has given land worth Rs 5,000-cr
to Reliance for a song’

Congress MP Kuldeep Bishnoi tells Realpolitik that the Haryana cabinet rammed through the proposal in the face of trepidation, and that the state has lost thousands of crores in kowtowing to RIL. Excerpts :

I will take up the issue with Soniaji who will no doubt do justice to the people of Haryana by scrapping this deal. The people’s mandate is being misused by the chief minister.’

The Haryana government is setting up a mega Special Economic Zone in a joint venture with Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL). We have learnt that the state cabinet was deeply divided on the transfer of some 1,500 acres of prime land at Garhi Harsaru in Gurgaon district to the JV entity.
I have heard about the discussions in the cabinet. I think the point raised by some of the ministers is valid. I strongly believe that the state government should not transfer the land acquired by the HSIDC for setting up an SEZ of its own. This is a piece of prime land close to Delhi. The price of this land, by very conservative estimates, would not be less than Rs 2.5 crore an acre, since the going rate of land in the adjoining IMT Manesar is at least Rs 3.5 crore an acre. The state government has transferred the prime land at Garhi Harsaru for some small percentage of equity in the Reliance Industries-HSIDC joint venture.

I would like to know what percentage of equity the state government got in lieu of the land worth about Rs 5,000 crore. I have learnt that the equity that has been given by RIL in the SEZ is about 6.5 per cent. If that is true, then the state chief minister, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, owes an explanation to the people of Haryana about the parameters used to calculate the value of equity in the joint venture.

What value has been assigned to the land put in by the HSIIDC as equity? What is the total value of the joint venture? Who is taking all these decisions? Why was the proposal to hand over the piece of prime land to RIL bulldozed through the cabinet? These are the questions agitating the minds of the people of Haryana. I would like to have the answers to these questions.

I would like to say here that I am not against private sector companies setting up industrial units or SEZs in Haryana. But, while allowing them to do so, the state has to keep in mind the interests of farmers whose land is being acquired and transferred to industrial houses. Earlier, before the state government transferred the land, there were reports in the media that Reliance Industries was going to acquire the entire 25,000-acre land for the SEZ for about Rs 3,000 crore.

Going by the value of land at Garhi Harsaru alone, the state government should have negotiated for nothing less than 51 per cent stake in the joint venture.

We also need to take a deeper look into the deal to see if the state government and Reliance was not using the SEZ as a cover to strike a real estate deal worth thousands of crores of rupees.

But the government has said that the land was acquired for Rs 25 lakh an acre…
I think we should not mix issues here. The land was acquired by the HSIDC for setting up its own SEZ, which was in the public interest. It may have been acquired at the price you are quoting. But, clearly, the land was not acquired for transferring it to private parties. Some people are arguing that the land is not being transferred to a private party but to a joint venture in which the state government has a holding.

But the question here is: What is the holding of the state government? What is the percentage? Have we got the best value? The farmers' land was acquired by the government at acquisition rate that is much lower than the going market rate in that area. So, in effect, the government has paid a pittance to the farmers and handed over the booty to the corporate house. In lieu of all this, the HSIDC has got peanuts in terms of shareholding in the joint venture. The chief minister has given land worth Rs 5,000 crore to Reliance for a song.

But don't you think that Reliance's plan for establishing a mega SEZ would ultimately benefit the people of the state by generating employment, boosting state's income, and so on?
As I said earlier, I am not against industrialisation and setting up of SEZs. My only contention is that the state government should not become a real estate agent for the corporate houses. It should not acquire land on behalf of these corporates at government rates, because this ultimately works against the interest of the people of the state, especially the farmers who lose land and employment. In any case, I think this whole plan of setting up a SEZ which involves 25,000 acres in a state like Haryana is ill-advised. Haryana is an agricultural state.

Being part of the Gangetic plain, it has some of the most fertile lands in the world. Intensive farming is carried out in large parts of the state, which makes it one of the few foodgrain surplus states in the country. The conditions in Haryana are completely different from states like, say, Karnataka or Andhra Pradesh. These states have huge chunks of barren land that easily can be used for industrial or any other purpose.

Also, the value of real estate in Haryana is much more than that in any other state because of its proximity to the national capital. Land is one of our major assets—especially land adjoining the national capital. Now, it is this very land (adjoining Delhi) that is being handed over to corporate houses for a song. Any right-thinking state government would have developed the interior areas of the state first rather than selling off precious real estate adjoining the national capital.

But state governments have always acquired land for joint ventures.
Not on this scale. Show me one example of any state government acquiring such huge tracts of land for any private party. Let the corporate houses acquire land on their own for their projects at the prevailing market rates. I do not understand why the state government was so desperate to hand over prime land at Garhi Harsaru for industrial use. Haryana is not a backward state. And we do not have to take such desperate measures to get the industry to invest in the state.

To the best of my knowledge, the case is the reverse. It is the industry that is keen, if not desperate, to invest in Haryana. I do not understand why the government showed such desperation to help Reliance Industries Ltd. I oppose the transfer of such chunks of land to any single corporate house. I think the state should focus on developing smaller special economic zones. The state could have derived maximum capital from the 1,500-acre Garhi Harsaru land by setting up its own Special Economic Zone in which land could have been allotted to various industrial units along the lines of IMT Manesar.

But the transfer of Garhi Harsaru land to the Reliance-led joint venture has already been approved by the state cabinet. Don't you think it’s a little late in the day to talk about these contentious issues?
I think it was in this month (May) that the state cabinet has taken this decision to transfer the land. It came to my knowledge a few days ago. And I think that for elected representatives of the people, it is never too late to raise the issues concerning the people. That is our job. And, I am only doing my job.

But it is your own party that is in power.
That does not mean that I will stop taking up the issues concerning the people. I cannot compromise on the interest of the people, especially the farmers. In any case, the Congress party has had a healthy tradition of having inner-party democracy because what matters ultimately
is the interest of the people. I am planning to take up this issue with respected Soniaji who, I am sure, will do justice to the people of Haryana by scrapping this anti-people deal with the Reliance Industries. I am also going to write to Rahulji about the misuse of people's mandate by the
chief minister.